Hey, I Didn't Forget

I am 1 for 2 in terms of New Year's Resolutions.  This is a thing that is official that I've been meaning to bring up, just forgot about it until now.  Seeing as there's something of a weekend lull, and I only made it about ten minutes into Assassin's Creed 3:  Liberation after beating Persona 4 Golden, then this is a perfect time to discuss it, for it is a thing that is to be discussed.  Some of you might have been around last January when I set my second ever New Year's Resolution of making my own game that would be a board game, styled something after Metal Gear Ac!d because goddamn if I don't love those two games and cards.  Cocky off my recent resolution win of doing this blog, I aimed to shoot for the stars and, well, life kind of caught up to me.  So, at this point in time, I'm disappointed to say that I don't have anything close to a prototype of the game to play with, meaning I failed that one.

As a side thing, I always kind of figured that it might not have gotten quite finished, but I expected, at least, to be a little bit into the actual card-making process which is currently still a point off on the horizon.  I have characters and factions drawn up (so to speak) and I have some base mechanics considered, but that's about the bulk of it honestly which is not really indicative of a years-worth of work.  Of course, it's not technically a years-worth of work, since there were entire months where I just couldn't even consider working on it because of the stuff that has cropped up, but I don't aim to excuse it, really.  Not like I have to, really - I wanted to do something and then I didn't.  Big deal.  A good part of the excitement really came from being able to have something to share and that's not gone, so there's not too much of an issue.

In all reality, the only reason I bring it up at all is because I'm just going to be renewing that resolution for this year.  It's a bit lazy and a bit counter to the entire idea, but really, it's just a formality.  Things that people want to do, we do regardless of reason or anything like that - the whole concept of being a Resolution is just an attempt at galvanization towards a certain goal that is generally considered a larger thing than we might ordinarily contest.  So what all this means is that I -still- want to make my game, and that I -hope- to make strides toward that goal through this upcoming year.  With the knowledge gathered last year at just what kind of a task this is that I have at hand, I hope to make some better strides this year, since I -know- which way I'm going, it's just the getting there that's the problem.

The issue with actually sharing this project, I'm realizing, is foresight.  Both in whether I might want to sell this thing in the future and whether I could, were I of a mind to attempt to.  There's not a whole lot of protection in just posting things up on the internet and hoping nobody takes them, after all.  But that's a bridge I'll cross at some later point - I'm sure if I keep -some- of the information back, I'll still have something I can build on, so I'm not too fussed about it.  Whenever I can update it, I promise that I will, but that might be a while in the future here - I'm working on other things and dealing with life as it comes, after all.  I've got the whole of this year to mess around with, though, so I am anticipating -some- progress.  In fact, I'd say it's a little impossible that there won't be any.  So that's a thing!

Sick Still, More Game Talk

So, it seems like I might be a bit on the decline rather than getting less sick but I guess it always gets worse before it gets better or somesuch other rhetoric.  Bottom line is, I'm still sick, there's still no news, I still haven't made enough progress in games to speak of (though this is mostly because my cooling ideas are falling through, meaning little to no real PS3 time) so why don't I just ramble about my card game some more.  I have a whole other facet at least somewhat realized in my head that I haven't brought up in the slightest and while it highlights one of my short-comings (the inability to draw people, hence not having concept pictures of them to share) it also gives a pretty good idea of what all I'm going for with the game itself, even if it might seem a bit scattered and/or more realized in my head at this point yet.

The entire facet that I haven't really gone into on here about is the actual 'Factions' of the game, of which I have sort of realized in my head, but I haven't put them to paper whatsoever for the reasons I've elucidated already.  They are a very rough realization of what I've envisioned so far, obviously, and I haven't worked out mechanics enough to know if they're viable/balanced with the 'perks' I've kind of figured on them having, but it's better than just not having anything at all.  Of course, considering the 'world' I've realized the game in bears an apparent resemblance to Mirror's Edge (that I am trying to figure -against- being since I'd rather try and stay away from 'rip off' comments if possible), I should preface things with a few facts here.  First off, I haven't actually played Mirror's Edge yet, but I've watched an LP of the game that I don't remember too much of despite it being highly entertaining.  (Both because of the game and the LPer)  Secondly, I know one of the factions is pretty much like Mirror's Edge, but I like it so whatever.

I'll go ahead and elaborate on that faction now, as it was the first, will likely be the 'hero' faction of the game (or protagonist faction or similar) and it's the one I've put the most thought into.  Of the four realized, this faction is classified as the "Runner" faction which does exactly what the name implies.  I don't have an official name for any of them as they're just concepts yet, but they all have a sort of descriptive title like that.  The Freerunners do pretty much exactly what you think; some of them actually try to do right by the city the game takes place in by delivering communiques and the like, where the others pretty much are just in it to run from the special army.  Adrenaline junkies, the lot of them, they still can offer a nice distraction for other runners who might be a little more 'professional' or righteous or what have you.  Their strength will be getting from Point A to Point B the fastest out of the groups, which will either be done through adding +1 base move to all their movements or those taken with Faction-specific cards, I haven't decided just yet.  With two movements possible in a turn, 2 extra squares will go quite a long way in the long run.

The second faction is decidedly the 'antagonist' faction, as they are the Special Forces militia put in place by the current head honcho.  I should've elaborated a bit earlier, but this sort of plays into the "I haven't played Mirror's Edge so I don't know if I'm ripping it off" thing.  Quite simply, after being elected into office (of some sort, dunno if he's actually the President or what) this high-up guy starts very slowly sinking his domain into a rigid, fear-based society, turning it from normal every day life to something more like V for Vendetta, what with the curfews, the possibility for random kidnapping, and other such things 'for your protection'.  Official crime is down by a bit (aside from those caused by the Runners and other factions), but at the cost of the bad dudes having free reign to cause problems themselves.  When playing as this Special Forces Militia or 'Gunners', you have the strength in numbers, since you'll be able to field 3 or 4 members of the faction (though they're individually the least impressive of all the factions because of this) at the start, and you -might- be able to call in reinforcements, I haven't decided.

The third is the first of the 'second-tier' factions, so said because I imagine if this were a game proper, this one and the next one would be dropped in favor of simply having the 'heroes' and the 'villains', but I don't operate as such.  The 'Modders' as I have dubbed them is a mainly co-op faction, since they get their strength from pairs.  As in, you field two at a time and one can augment the other, even from a distance, as they are kind of cyborgs.  The idea I'm running with is sort of Borg-ish experimental beings have been made by the head bad guy except two of them escaped with the technology used to make them and are now obsessed with bringing people into their 'order' to try and perfect their own design.  So their cards and the like will probably focus on equippable items mostly and either they can equip to their partner should they choose or they -share- equip slots, I'm not quite sure which.  Again, still not sure on the whole balance of things here.

The last faction is the faction that I'm sure none of you are surprised that I'm including and/or that I made an effort to actually fit this in.  The 'Brawlers' do just what you expect, and are basically just a group of streetfighters who cause problems among themselves and others for all sorts of reasons.  Some are trying to shake 'society' up with their fists to make everyone see that something is wrong, and some just want to punch people.  Regardless of the reason, they are very good at it and as you might expect, their cards/battle style is all about getting up-close and personal.  Because of that, however, in a world where guns exist, it's a dangerous venture, so I've had to think of how to make them equally dangerous.  My idea is, basically, either allowing them to equip up to three attacks (as opposed to two) -or- allowing them to chain attack cards.  Like, using an attack card and chaining that to an equipped attack card to decidedly increase their damage output.  Again, balance is probably going to step in here, but I like it as a base.

I like to think that I have, at least, a very definite cast of characters in the factions themselves, but I've also been thinking about individuals to fill those out.  Specifically, I've got about four people in mind for the Runners, five for the Gunners (which is easy, since you basically just have to pick names for the same base type, though there needs to be -some- variation of course), four Modders (two pairs) and three Brawlers, and while I'm sure it would be terribly interesting to describe designs, I'll save that for another time.  Or for a time when I can show you rather than describe them out.  Much as with the card concepts, at least I can put down something that shows I -have- put a lot of thought into this thing, even if it might not seem it.  With any luck, I'll be able to have more tangible proof sometime soon-ish.

My Game - A Thing Called Progress

You will never know the difficulty uploading this took.

So, I did say long ago that I had not only intended on having a slightly working prototype of a game made by the end of the year, but that I had an idea in mind.  And since then, it's more or less been complete silence on it as I took it behind-the-scenes as it were, and simply started working on it mostly in my own time.  And mostly in my own mind with tonight being not the first, but one of the few times I sat down and tried to concept something out for it.  Obviously tonight was the card design and layout (click Here for slightly bigger version) and with very general and broad strokes, since the mechanics are more or less still up in the air.  There are definitely two systems in place at the moment and they both offer their own strengths and weaknesses, so I have to pin down just which is the best of the two.

The two systems, which I imagine explaining prior to describing the cards above and the thought behind them is a good idea, are pretty simple and tried-and-true ones.  The first, which was more or less what the cards above were designed in mind with at the moment, is a cost system as most card-based games have.  All cards feature an Equip cost and a Use Cost (Why all?  You'll see.) which is admittedly partially taken from Metal Gear Ac!d as an idea, but it's not like it'd be the first nor last.  Ideas come from everywhere, etc. etc.  The gist of Use and Equip costs is that they make you think a bit more 'tactically' since you can keep a card to use if you think it will be useful or it might just be worth preparing by equipping it so you can chain it with something else.  Of course, not everything can be chained, but blah blah, details.  And the second idea is to simply have a number of actions a turn (2, for instance) wherein you can play a card however you want, but you only get two.  You can equip two cards, equip one and use one, move with both, etc.  The advantage here is the easier nature of it, since you don't have to track numbers and costs, but game balance is a concern, since with no cost or anything, some cards could easily become OP, all things considered.

That in mind, let's get a little bit into the cards and start peeling back what is simply visible to explain what it means.  Start with the left-most card that is, unfortunately, a little washed out because it's lightly sketched and glare happens, but I figure you can see it well enough.  It offers pretty much the simplest design that sort of looks like what most other cards design themselves after.  The Use cost in the upper right corner with the name of the card being up there as well, under that is the illustration, and under that is the description.  I have part of the description box taken up by a little space for an emblem that shows what affiliation the card is for (of the four 'Factions' as well as unaligned) for flavor and under that is the Equip Cost which is possibly a bit out-of-place.  But that is the point of doing roughs, of course, to figure this sort of stuff out and place things in a better place.

I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but I do think the middle card is the one I like the most in this group of three.  It's a fairly different spin on the classic design since it compartmentalizes the upper square usually dominated by the illustration for the card.  Since I want Affiliation to play a part in the game (I'm thinking bonuses for using cards affiliated with the faction you're playing, which is the simplest), it features that pretty chiefly and allows for flavor text and/or a reminder as to what bonus it might innately offer if I go that route.  (I'm thinking the Movement-based Faction gets an additional 1 to move for such cards and the like)  Then the Description is afforded a reasonable amount of space above the bottom bar which has a spot for Equip Cost, Movement Value, and Use Cost respectively, keeping everything fairly neatly in its own place.  The main problem is that it does cramp the illustration a bit and vertical space is generally trickier to work with than horizontal.

The last card, which kind of seems like a variation of the first is also a pretty strong contender.  Use and Equip Costs are featured at the top of the card on opposite sides, flanking the illustration and name, forcing it to the center rather than left to right.  The illustration still has plenty of room even with the triangles cutting into the space, the description has ample room, and the Affiliation Emblem watermark offers that distinction that I want to be very apparent.  The only issue with it is that it's a fairly basic design, and I honestly don't know where to put Movement Value, so I sort of just tossed it in the center at the bottom.  It has the benefit of keeping the 'triangle' theme, not only making a triangle with the other numbers, as well as them being cased in triangles themselves.  So it does have a bit of flow, which I like, but it still seems a bit lacking and/or thrown-together.

I just wanted to show that off to show that there was, indeed, work and/or thought being put into the project.  While I'm sort of doubting it being even a little bit workable by the end of the year, it's nice to have something a little tangible made up.  And writing this out has made it a lot more focused in my head as to how to rethink and/or refine certain aspects of the game as a whole, as well as the designs I thought up.  Of course, this is just one aspect of it that I have to cover, the other two being the characters/factions (which I have in mind, just haven't concepted them out because I am terrible with forms, as is obvious) and the ideals in place for making some maps to actually play the game out with and help me keep it balanced.  Everything sort of has its own facets which I'm realizing very slowly, and thinking out those facets will likely be the biggest challenge of the process on the whole.

My Game: Leaning Towards....

Despite having a more solid start with my Tabletop concept, the allure of the unknown and recent deluge of ideas I had for the Card game seems to be pushing me solidly in that direction insomuch as I've not been able to -not- think about it for the last couple days.  A lot of fleshing out has been done (comparatively speaking at least) for the concept, so I really think I can hit the ground running with that one if I think up just a few more base things for it.  I guess I can/should go over what little I have really planned out here, if only to help my thought process on it along some.  That (and talking to Saki-Chan) certainly seemed to help start fleshing this out to begin with anyways, so hopefully I can keep that creativity going.

The world I have envisioned, which I've kind of touched on already, is fairly Mirror's Edge-ish in my head, looks-wise anyways, in that it's going to be fairly super modern, but not futuristic with the most detail for that being in the very clean presentation ME offers.  The general atmosphere of the world might carry over as well in a sense, or at least how I've interpreted ME without playing it just yet; a world (or at least a nation) that's fairly ruled by fear and dominance, but in such a way that it's hardly noticed.  Nothing to fall into disrepair out of neglect because 'everything will be fine so long as you live like you're told' and that sort of theme which would obviously help where it concerns the -more- important factor of the game that I'm still working on:  The Factions involved that a player can control.

I have four main groups thought of at current, which is more or less all I want; I imagine a game involving four players would be rather chaotic enough if it's done right, but such is how tactical games go when more and more players are introduced.  Still, any more than that would likely be rough going and having it at that, with all four factions independent of one another means if you only have one other or two other friends to play with, you're not exactly losing out.  All four groups have their own uniqueness so far to make them appealing to several different playstyles.  One is mostly movement-focused which sort of cribs more from ME more than I would've liked but come on, it fits where another draws its strength from raw numbers, meaning the player playing them can field/control more than one person in a game.  A third faction is, in my head, sort of envisioned as a Street Gang/group of Street Fighters who are, obviously, more combat oriented and might even be able to chain together combat actions (to increase the overall damage somewhat) or perhaps be able to prepare a third combat maneuver.  And the fourth....well, the fourth more or less has to be a 'specialist' group, but specializing in -what- is what I haven't settled on just yet.

I think I said it before, but I envision the game being able to be carried around in just a few parts:  a deck for your chosen faction, your chosen figure (think a Mini-figure) with its necessary stats, and a couple folded maps for you and your friends to decide what to use for that particular round.  Every map will be marked for any gametype so you'll be able to pick one and just get right into it, or, obviously, make up your own goals if you so desire.  Like I said, the game is fairly designed (in my head, obviously) to have that low barrier of entry that card games offer, where you can just pull out a deck and start playing since you both know the rules already, or even if you don't, it's fairly easy to explain right like that.  The actual gameplay is at least a bit more complex, of course, but the hope is that it'll be a little more rewarding without being too overcomplicated.

There's plenty of other stuff I have at least initialized, obviously, but I can't help but feel like I need to keep some of it back for now.  I'm still pretty excited with it as I've got going through my head and if I can just really pull it out and put it down into something physical that matches it, I'll be really happy with what I end up with.  Here's to hoping I'll be able to start thinking up actual cards without hitting a wall relatively early!

Pros and Cons of My Game Ideas

As of the time of writing this, I have found that one of the harder aspects of achieving my New Year's Resolution will be simply deciding on just which project to pursue for it.  As I presented in the last post, my Resolution post, I have two different types of games that I have milling about in my head that one of which, with any luck, will be an actual thing by years-end:  A Table-top RPG system (akin to Dungeons and Dragons, Vampire:  The Masquerade, Exalted, etc.) with the lore and such, or a Trading Card/Tactics/Board-style hybrid game in the vein of Metal Gear Ac!d that would, presumably, also have a bit of lore surrounding it depending on what form it takes.  There's cons on the surface of either project that basically amount to "Making a game is pretty tough", but in thinking about it, each game has their own various drawbacks, but also their own rewards that the other probably can't replicate.  I imagine really parsing them both out here will help me make sense of which I should really go with better than not.

The Card Game:

The obvious first issue with making a Card game in the way I'm envisioning is basically that it already exists in the shells of Metal Gear Ac!d and Metal Gear Ac!d 2, which means that I have to design it specifically around not being either of those games as much as possible because 1) this has to be my own thing and 2) I don't want to 'rip off' anything.  Being able to say "inspired by" while people can acknowledge it's a different thing (beyond the fact that it'll use things that aren't Metal Gear) is the goal, obviously, but having kind of a restriction in that vein is a troublesome one.  If only because I can't remember a lot of MGA besides fun and grinding for more cards obsessively, so I don't remember the ups and downs of the system in place there.  This means that for every mechanic and idea I have, I have to make sure it's not a rip from the games in question, because, again, this has to be at least mostly original on my part.  Which also means that I also have to determine what would, theoretically be a 'straight-rip' and what's more or less just a viable open idea.  More or less the difference between figuring on 'numbers on cards = movement value' being 'okay to use' or 'nope, too much theirs' and the like.

The other big downside is obviously that for a card-based game to be viable, there has to be a lot of cards which I may or may not be able to really make up.  For one, I'm not much of an artist, so I couldn't do the visualizations and would just, instead, have a bunch of cards made up with a spot for images that aren't there, leaving me to have to have someone else make those.  Then again, that's mostly cosmetic and I should more focus on the mechanics of it all, but I have to figure out at least some of this stuff beforehand, if just for a mental picture.  Still, knowing that a lot of cards are necessary, possibly in the 100-200 range depending on how I take this, makes it a slight bit intimidating thinking about making any of them since there'll always be the looming "One down 132 to go" feeling hanging over me.  Maybe I'm overshooting a bit, or overestimating just how difficult making that many cards would be, but I'm not quite sure.

The last real big Con against this idea is the fact that it's whole concept in my mind is a bit nebulous, at least when it's compared to the setting of my RPG that is.  It wasn't until just earlier today that I really got a glimpse into the 'world' I would like to base the game around and I was fairly surprised by what I was looking at.  More or less what I've settled on is having it set up so that the lowest amount of players is 2, where one will control the 'Main Character' (of which there will probably be a few, each having their own pros and cons) and the other player will control the 'Opposing Force',  (which will probably work on the 'strength in numbers' philosophy as so many game 'armies' do) where the ultimate goal for the MC is to get to a certain point, pick up objectives, kill a certain person (or persons) on the board or whatever else they decide on, whereas the goal of the OF will generally be to wipe out the MC (though there are possibilities for other things).  Other players would be handled differently in sort of a Free-for-All basis where just because one person plays OF and two people each play an MC doesn't mean those two players are working together.

The upside here is that in just writing this and talking to Saki-Chan as I do so, I've expanded a lot on my original idea in various ways, so the last con there is less true, but only slightly so.  As well as that, just thinking all this up has me so excited that I can't keep my ideas straight and it's got my brain working overtime.  In general terms of viability, I imagine this would be the idea out of the two that's more apt for being more approachable; something where the rules are a little more set and concrete over a Tabletop RPG, and it leads more for quicker play sessions, though they could be as drawn-out as the players wished, depending on the objectives set and the factions/characters used.  So I guess the condensed version of the Pros section would be that it's more accessible, more portable (the idea in my head currently is being able to have a pack thing for one or two decks, a figure or figures depending on what you use, and a couple fold-out maps), and more flexible in terms of session time meaning players could determine their own level of time invested.

The Tabletop RPG:

The first and biggest issue with making a Tabletop RPG is that, by its own nature, you have to make your own world and lore which implies every little bit of detail you'd infer from that statement.  Every character has to be able to come from 'something', to have their own baggage by virtue of being one thing or another, and to have their own advantages for the same reason.  The world has to live and breathe before you hand it to players for them to shape their own portion of it in their image, because first it has to attract them with that life to convince them to create in it.  You have to offer your world as an outlet for them to plug into, not unlike a video game, whereas giving them enough tools and freedom to use as much or as little of what you've made for their own whims.  And in that same vein, you have to understand that some people just aren't going to like certain aspects, so you have to leave it flexible enough to work around those aspects or exclude them outright.

The con in itself is worth like five or so because it's the umbrella for every part of the game that you have to create which is an issue in itself.  Mechanics, characters, how enemies work, what is the world made of and what happened in its past, you have to make everything but a plot the characters have to follow because that's where the GM steps in, and they could want to step in at any angle, meaning you have to leave things open enough for them to do that easily.  I'm struggling to find ways to make that more apparent, but all I can think of to do is to just state that and reinforce it by saying it again in different ways.  You almost have to play a game with yourself of getting things to the point where a theoretical starting point for most campaigns would be (insomuch as 'the world looks like this, currently', where is where most GMs would take it from, since that point generally offers the most flexibility.  Where others will want to take a more 'changing/reinforcing history' route.) and by that point, you have to have everything else set in stone which might point out its flaws in doing so meaning you have to double-back on it all.

I guess the good part of this is that I already have some of this stuff figured out.  I have a world in concept already which is flexible enough to let me have a past, the moment things started happening and their 'end point' which is that theoretical starting point for most campaigns.  It's not perfect and it needs fleshing out, but it has more substance to it than the Card game since this isn't the first time I've really thought about it.  In truth, I've had this idea for upwards of....maybe a year, actually, and have only put small efforts into making it something more than it is.  Ideas for this and that have been put down on the overall map of the game, but I need to make them more than they are, to make them actually viable things rather than a 'neat idea' for a mechanic, or theoretical approaches to a certain action like crafting or something like that.  The fact that it's started is welcome, but the expanse of work is probably greater than I could expect with the card game, if only in the theorizing of everything.

Still, the overall reward would be greater in that I'll have made something that will always be more than it is; because it's a world incomplete on purpose the people who buy into it and get into it will always get more out of it than you could give them were it anything else.  You're giving them a means to create an adventure that they'll always remember and always associate with what you started and that's going to be a feeling you'll never really be able to quantify well enough.  Only if it's executed well enough, that is, as nobody wants to play, to make something, with shoddy tools when there are plenty of other more viable building materials out there.  While that's true for both game ideas I have, I feel it's moreso with this one, since I'll certainly be creating more for this than the card game, which means there's more to lose if I don't manage to get something good going.

I have my work cut out for me regardless of which option I go for.  The fact that I want to go after both, that I'm literally sitting here near-trembling in excitement at the prospect of creating this or that for either game just as willingly as the other is a good sign for me though.  I'm really ready to go at this with both barrels once I know what I'm going at, which means that I'm pretty optimistic about my chances here.  Hopefully that optimism helps actually create, instead of just getting me worked up about something I can't put together.  I'm pretty confident though, seeing as the last thing I decided to go at like this was this blog.

Resolution Time!

Some of you who read this blog might actually not know that a New Year's Resolution is what really spawned this whole thing.  Last year In 2010, at the end of December, I decided to actually make a resolution that year rather than just being dismissive about the whole thing.  So, I had been The Games of Chance pretty heavily and decided "Hey, writing is a thing I want to do and I quite enjoy reading his blog, so maybe I could do something like that of my own!" and after getting a few pieces of advice from him, I started it up.  The mission statement of at least a post every other day, the commitment to delivering actual content beyond a paragraph or two or just a link to something, it all spawned from me resolving to really jump into this whole writing thing head-first, so I'd say being 1/1 is a pretty good record.

So, of course, this year I just have to one-up myself because that can't end poorly, right?  In all actuality, I've set two resolutions for myself, but I'm only going to be talking about the first one as the second is....well, a little more personal.  They're both a little ambitious, but likely the former (i.e. the one I'm talking about) is the more ambitious of the two.  I wanted something challenging, but something not cliche', so no weight-loss, quitting a 'vice' or anything like that for me, since I am mostly terrible about 'quitting' things.  But I've obviously found something I'm fairly good at, so I'm going to go with that.  So, much like my last resolution, this year's resolution is going to be all about creation.

I've done quite a few posts here about what I'd do if I was making a game, whether it's the series of posts I did about my 'dream game' or the posts I've made about mimicking a Metal Gear Ac!d game with another game as a base, I have very much been vocal about what I'd do if I was going to make a game.  So, hey, put up or shut up time, right?  I haven't talked about all the different ideas I've had in mind here even, and I'm not planning on making a -video game- since it is far, far beyond my capability at this time, but I've been tossing around ideas for either a Table-top RPG style game (Like D&D) or actually making up a card game in the theme of Metal Gear Ac!d (but not exactly like it, of course) so I think it's time to actually get one of them done.  I'm obviously not talking professional-level stuff here; by January of next year (If we make it that far, hurr hurr Mayan Calendar) I'm not expecting to have something I can pitch to someone to be an actual 'buy this at a store' game, but at least something I can pull up with some friends, do a quick explanation of it, and get a game going.

I don't know which I'm going to go with officially, but I've got an idea, so once I have a few things firmly in place, I'll be liable to share them here I'm sure.  And this won't be like "I'm going to make levels on LittleBigPlanet, for serious, and post pictures and stuff about the creation process, I promise" because we all know how that turned out (I'm officially waiting for LBP Vita for that now.  >.> ) since this is my resolution.  This is a -thing- and it's going to -happen-.  'Where making this happen' for reals, and I think it'll be a pretty interesting thing to actually talk about every now and then.  The lucky thing is that, in either case, I already have a few ideas made up, so if nothing else, the first couple of posts about whatever I pick will be easy enough.  And with that, that should prompt me to continue on!

We'll see how it goes, but I hope you guys are interested in seeing what I've got going on!